How to Build a Batshit-Crazy Fast Integra Type R

The story of James Houghton’s obscenely fast Integra has humble beginnings. He had an EG Civic way-back-when, and when he got tired of his temperamental hawk-eye Subaru WRX STi, he was eager to get into another Honda, minus the rust and body-filler that plagued the old EG. That’s when he came across a clean, white, Acura Integra Type R. Then came light mods; springs, Koni struts, some used sticky rubber, and he signed up for a Sigma Time Attack event. Why time attack? Cost – if you place first at Sigma then they cover your entry fee, and James won, a lot. Fast forward to 2011 and the car got sponsored by Teknotik which lead to a built B18, racing seats, and full bolt-ons. The result? They ran eleven time attack events and set eleven Street FWD track records. But that was then, and this is now.

In a never ending quest to shave off seconds, the car eventually received a built K24 engine complete with 11:1 compression ratio CP Pistons, a shaved K20 head, Acura TSX cams, and a Moroso oil pan with special baffling to prevent oil starvation when subjected to the mammoth 3 lateral Gs this car produces. The real magic, however, is tucked out of sight underneath the K-tuned intake manifold; a Jackson Racing supercharger. Specially designed for this car, it raises power from the 245 whp to an eye-watering 598 whp at 8,200 rpm. All of that power makes its way to massive Pirelli front slicks.

Oddly, this car’s suspension setup is simpler than you’d expect. You’ll find the front, lower ball joint extensions to help lower the car’s roll center, and K-Tuned coilovers with 1600 lbs./in springs in the front, and 1300 lbs./in springs in the rear. Why do the driven wheels have stiffer spring rates than the non-driven wheels? To answer that, you need to get into the details, and this car is all about the details.

First there’s the staggered wheel setup. This car runs massive 285s Pirelli slicks up front, and 225s in the rear. Not only has the team found that this setup works well when rotating a 598 whp FWD car, but if they went any wider in the rear, they’d need to either accept aero losses (from the exposed tire) or start bolting on fender flares. What does adding wider wheels, tires, and fender flares add? Weight; and James is obsessed with weight reduction.

Note: diffuser is not pictured.

Notice the lack of a rear window? The entire hatch has been replaced with fiberglass to save 30 lbs, and a rear-facing camera was installed. (weighing about a pound) The stock metal doors have been replaced with fiberglass saving 40 lbs each, the roof and hood are both carbon fiber, and even the b-pillars were painstakingly cut out to save 12 lbs each. Stoptech designed the car’s new STR43 big brake kit to save 3.8 lbs per corner over the car’s old ST40 kit. The exhaust pipe out of the passenger door? The team did the math and decided that the weight of running three-inch tubing out the back of the car was more detrimental than the aero loses they’d suffer running the pipe out the passenger door. The result? This 598 whp car weighs just 2150 lbs. Whoa.

The other piece of the puzzle has to do with aerodynamics. A massive front splitter (not pictured) that covers the entire front subframe. All the air flowing underneath the splitter needs somewhere to go, which is where the vents on top of the front fenders come into play. Once air passes the front splitter, it reaches the diffuser that starts just aft of the driver’s seat and runs out the back of the car. How do you fit a massive splitter under a low racecar? You don’t. If you look at the door sills, you’ll notice that this car sits shockingly high to accommodate the diffuser. It just looks like it’s slammed thanks to the massive wheels and racing slicks, the low front splitter and side-skirts. More-so, thanks to an obscene number of aerodynamic tricks not mentioned, the whole car is compressed a little over an inch at speed, making for sweet photos like this:

MotorIQ – Martin Gonzales

You can expect to see this car at Super Lap Battle, Global Time Attack, GridLife, and virtually anywhere else with a racetrack and a lap timer. Before I close this, I promised James I’d share two pieces of advice.

The first, is before you start shopping for a K24, a supercharger and slicks, get out there and turn some laps; thousands, and thousands of laps. James doesn’t run 1:11s around TMP because he has 598 whp, he does so because he got good enough to break eleven street-FWD records on the factory B18. A fast car with a novice driver behind the wheel results in, you guessed it, novice times.

His other piece of advice is, once you’ve done thousands of laps and are ready to build a car, don’t be afraid to follow an obvious path. Let me explain.

There was a time, many, many years ago, where the internet didn’t exist. (gasp) In those days, if you wanted to do an engine swap, you either needed to know a guy who knew how to do your engine swap, or you were basically working in the dark. Today, if you want to swap a K24 into an Integra, a quick google search will bring up swap kits, detailed guides, and forums where you can pick the brains of 40 other people who have done your swap. If you choose to do something like say, put a supercharged K24 into a Mazda RX-7, in a way, you’re sorta doing an engine swap pre-internet. You have to design and test your own engine mounts, design your own oil pan, break out wiring diagrams and make your own harness; you get the picture. What are you not doing during this process? Driving your car.

So there you have it; stick crazy weight reduction, aerodynamic trickery, massive, sticky racing slicks, and lots and lots of horsepower into a blender, and you end up with a monster of an Integra Type-R that could blow the doors off Italian exotics. Don’t forget to add lots, and lots of Drivermod.

Eat your heart out Honda fans.

Note: this list is in no way inclusive; a full parts list would take pages.